Year 10 Research: 1967 Referendum
1. The National Museum of Australia (Government Organisation)
2. Very reliable information because it was presented by a government organisation, and there are contact numbers, etc if there are problems/inquiries.
3. 27th May 1967
4. The aim of the Referendum was to give the Aboriginal People more rights, removing 2 negative passages from the constitution and allowing government to legislate for them as a group.
5. The movement has been pushed since 1929, when the London based Anti-Slavery society called for a referendum on the issue of Commonwealth responsibility for Aboriginal welfare. Later, the Victorian Women’s Citizen also supported this movement.
6. He stated that Aboriginal welfare should be made a national responsibility because all Australians owe to them a debt of compensation. He further stated that we dispossessed them of their country, and that no one can argue with that.
7. The main reasons for why this movement failed early on was the outbreak of World War II, which significantly slowed its progress. Moreover, there were fourteen proposals put to the voters by the Aboriginal representatives, but the national government put them as one question, which was not accepted by the majority.
8. In 1938, William Cooper, Jack Patten and Bill Ferguson, of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association, petitioned to hold a Day of Mourning to draw attention to the losses suffered by the Aboriginal People at the hands of “the Whiteman”. They also demanded a National Policy for Aborigines and Commonwealth Government control of all Aboriginal Affairs. But with the outbreak of war the following year, this matter’s political progress slowed.
-- Simon